1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the fabrication of magnetic read/write heads that employ TAMR (thermally assisted magnetic recording) to enable writing on magnetic media having high coercivity and high magnetic anisotropy. More particularly, it relates to the use of a narrow magnetic pole in conjunction with plasmon mode heating to obtain narrow track widths for recording at high densities.
2. Description of the Related Art
Magnetic recording at area data densities of between 1 and 10 Tera-bits per in2 involves the development of new magnetic recording media, new magnetic recording heads and, most importantly, a new magnetic recording scheme that can delay the onset of the so-called “superparamagnetic” effect. This latter effect is the thermal instability of the extremely small regions on which information must be recorded, in order to achieve the required data densities. A way of circumventing this thermal instability is to use magnetic recording media with high magnetic anisotropy and high coercivity that can still be written upon by the increasingly small write heads required for producing the high data density. This way of addressing the problem produces two conflicting requirements:    1. The need for a stronger writing field that is necessitated by the highly anisotropic and coercive magnetic media.    2. The need for a smaller write head of sufficient definition to produce the high areal write densities, which write heads, disadvantageously, produce a smaller field gradient and broader field profile.
Satisfying these requirements simultaneously may be a limiting factor in the further development of the present magnetic recording scheme used in state of the art hard-disk-drives (HDD). If that is the case, further increases in recording area density may not be achievable within those schemes. One way of addressing these conflicting requirements is by the use of assisted recording methodologies, notably thermally assisted magnetic recording, or TAMR.
The heating effect of TAMR works by raising the temperature of a small region of the magnetic medium to essentially its Curie temperature (Tc), at which temperature both its coercivity and anisotropy are significantly reduced and magnetic writing becomes easier to produce within that region.
In the following, we will address our attention to a particular implementation of TAMR described in the prior arts, namely the transfer of electromagnetic energy to a small, sub-micron sized region of a magnetic medium through interaction of the magnetic medium with the field of an edge plasmon excited by an optical frequency laser.
The edge plasmon mode is excited in an overlap region between a conducting plasmon generator (PG) and a waveguide (WG). The source of optical excitement can be a laser diode, also contained within the read/write head structure, or a laser source that is external to the read/write head structure, either of which directs its beam of optical radiation at the generator through a means of intermediate energy transfer such as an optical waveguide (WG). As a result of the WG, the light optical mode couples to a propagating plasmon mode of a PG, whereby the optical energy is converted into plasmon energy. This plasmon energy is then transferred to the medium at the pole tip, at which point the heating occurs at a very small spot size. When the heated spot on the medium is correctly aligned with the magnetic field produced by the narrow pole tip, TAMR is achieved. The following prior arts describe TAMR implementations in various forms.
K. Tanaka et al. (US Publ. Pat. Appl. 2008/0192376) and K. Shimazawa et at (US Publ. Pat. Appl. 2008/0198496) describe TAMR structures that utilize edge plasmon modes to couple to a WG and then transmit and concentrate the plasmon energy at the ABS (air bearing surface) of the TAMR head.
Harmann et al. (US Publ. Pat. Appl. 2005/0190496) discloses generating a heated spot on the leading edge side of a write gap.
Jin et al. (US Publ. Pat. Appl. 2007/0230047) teaches a TAMR writer with a narrow pole tip.
Poon et al, (US Publ. Pat. Appl. 2008/0154127) also discloses heating a magnetic media as it passes beneath a write gap.
Zhou et al. (US Publ. Pat. Appl. 2009/0052092) shows a small heating coil in a write gap.
Kasiraj et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,493,183) shows an electrically resistive heater in a write gap between pole tips.
Lille (US Publ. Pat. Appl. 2010/0002330) describes a near field light source providing a pre-heating pulse using an optical waveguide.
The magnetic pole designs for TAMR application that are disclosed in the prior arts (such as those cited above) generally utilize a pole that is much wider than that being used in current (non-TAMR) perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) designs that address ultra-high areal density. The narrow track that is needed for such ultra-high areal density in TAMR is realized by the very small size of the heated spot when the recording is thermally dominant for a magnetic medium with a high coercivity, such as FePt with L10 orientation.
As it is still in the development stage, FePt magnetic recording medium suffers from many adverse properties, such as roughness, large grain size distribution, large variation in Tc (Curie temperature), large dHc/Hc and large switching field distributions. These properties, when taken together, limit the linear density capability of the FePt medium compared to the state-of-the-art PMR medium that is granular CoCrPt based. Improving the FePt medium for higher areal density recording as desired might have a long way to go based on the current state of medium development and medium evaluation. On the other hand, state-of-the-art PMR medium has been able to achieve >1500 kbpi linear density with good SNR and BER and is likely to be improved even further to achieve even higher areal densities.
When conventional PMR media with low coercivity is used, a wide magnetic pole and leading edge recording design will cause adjacent track erasures as a result of the pole width (>300 nm). Thus, the head designs disclosed in the cited prior arts will find it difficult to achieve the desired high areal recording densities in conventional PMR media.